Goats
by WrittenPhoto
Summary: It wasn't about the sudden silence accompanied with the Mocking Jays copying the sounds of the bombs falling and going off, the screams faint in their throats. It was the black and white figure before me, covered in stray mats and soot. It was a Goat.
1. Unwanted Child

My sharp cries were hushed quickly in the dark morning light, a hand muffling my sounds. I wasn't the only one crying, my parents were crowing over the chickens who clucked in the coop near our home. The padding of bare feet echoed outside, the smell of manure and clothes becoming sweat soaked were the smells that first entered through my nostrils that were quickly being cleaned from my Fathers dirt calloused hands. I was the firstborn and only child to Yive and Gaby Hale, the child they desperately promised never to have.

Yive and Gaby were raised in the Tenth District, full of livestock it was. Both were raised in large families that worked on the fields with their animals.

My Mother was a chicken, that's what they called her in school. She had nails that would tear into you like a rooster who tried to cage you up into a tree. Her cheekbones were sharp like her chin, resembling a hawk like face that resembled sharp points of a beak. Her hair was a dry matted red that had faded from a red shimmer the Capital loved. They remarked that her beauty would astound the competitors in the Games, that they would fawn over the designs they would garb upon her body.

My Father was a soft faced blonde haired cheeky boy in his younger days. He had the endurance of a stallion, and the power of a heifer. During his days of teachings in the school, he was considered intelligent, a few times in passing peace keepers mentioned he should have been born in District One or Two. They said that his intelligence and brute force would allow him to be a victor, and who wouldn't have wanted to be a victor?

But both lost a sibling to the Games.

A red haired brother, and a blonde eyed sister. Both too young for taking.

When they grew closer and closer, entwined together with their grievances and hard life, they vowed not to bring more pain and suffering onto another being. They lied. December ninth is the day they realized their mistake. My arms waving in the air and my heart beating a mile a minute. Quietly it was decided that I would be raised with love, not hopelessness. My birth scared them, and it was the reason they didn't even attempt to have any more children.

I was raised by my Mothers breast for the first years of my life. While my Father worked in the fields with the livestock. My Mother fed the smaller livestock with me cushioned to her breast, pigs biting her skirts and calves bleating in her ears. I was comfortable. My belly was full and I was around things I loved. That and I really liked goats.

* * *

Five years old and I was already tottering around with Mom, spraying corn to the chickens and letting them out in the yard to peck at the dirt. Dad had yet to take me out to break colts and to gentle cows in the fields. I didn't very much like horses, I preferred goats. Sure, they liked to ram at you and try to kick at you. But sometimes, you just look at them, and they decide they like you once in a while.

I really liked that about goats.

The first time I went to a reaping, I was carrying a kid. Small thing that liked to suck on my finger. It liked to chew on my blonde hair, my Mom scolded it often, hitting it on the nose often. I was on the edge of the group, and the boys and girls were penned up differently, dressed in their best clothes. Some lady was prancing around on the stage, strange hairs and clothes littering her body. She stepped gracefully, her shoes making tapping noises, louder than the men and women's bare feet in the morning. It sounded like the cry of war that the stallions yelled in the morning of heat filled paddocks with mares.

It was scary.

I flinched away from this sound and Mom gripped my shoulders harshly. It was happening. It was happening and there was nothing I could do, this was the horror my school mates feared a week ago, their whispering hurting those around them. Everyone was sullen faced, cold. But the teacher said it was an honor to be part of the games. Only did a few masks break when the woman made her way to a bowl filled with paper, a smile placed on her head. Her hand reached into the bowl with quickness, swirling around it for a moment.

Then deftly she picked a slip out.

I don't remember the girls name, it was called, and she was stiffly walked to the stage with peacekeepers. She looked like she was cut off from the world, and the world was silent. A boy was chosen, and the world seemed to stop. They were taken to the town hall, and I never saw them in person ever again.

I walked off with the kid in my hand, my Mom trailing behind me with silent tears streaming down her face. I had nightmares for weeks, for in seven years, that might be me, dying.

* * *

Goats start, and with it, a new character and less time to update this and other stories. Have a nice time reading, and have a good day or night!


	2. District Ten

_"__My sister got a ten in her evaluation." My Mom spoke softly as she cut up the cow that hung from a hook, the blood making its way to the floor. My small body was huddled on a chair in the corner as I stared up at her. They had begun to teach the Hunger Games in school, the greatness of what it was. _

_"__How?" My high voice spoke. A ten was something only careers got, and careers were trained, Moms sister wasn't._

_"__She gutted a Dummy out for the game makers. Hummed the entire time is what she told Henrietta."_

_Mom spoke so quietly about it, as if it pained her, why would it pain her? They talked about Henrietta and her greatness in school, how she beat everyone by taming a wild colt in her arena, and trampling everyone to a pulp. She was the less scarred of our Victors, seeing as all she had to do is close her eyes while the horse buried her competitors down. All she heard was the cannons going off as she opened her eyes for the next one. The Capital with some sick fascination took the horse and had it trained for the carriages to be presented in the parade. Henrietta apparently couldn't watch the parade anymore because of it._

_My chubby hands grasped the chair and I looked to Mom with admiration and confusion as she stripped the black flesh that was tinted softly with brown from the animal. The sound of ripping caused by the hide separating from the tight parts of fat holding together the muscle was a lullaby to both of our ears. Quickly I squirmed in my seat, the blanket Mom had carried me in wrapped tightly around me, securing my movements. Mom sighed as she saw me do this, she moved the knife to one hand and picked me up with the other, swinging me onto her hip, blood leaving fingerprints on the dark blanket made from sheep hide._

_"__If she got a ten, how come she didn't get to be ah Victor?" I sucked on my thumb and I felt a slight metallic taste hit my tongue. My cheeks were flushed and I snuggled into Mom's neck, reveling her warmth she emitted in this cold room._

_The sigh she let out warmed my cheeks, and her breath smelled of plants she chewed in the morning on the way to work. "Sometimes it doesn't matter what kind of score you get, it depends on how fate works for you in the games. She got mauled by a career, once you get caught by one there's no getting away from a career." She set her knife down and petted my hair, blood sticking slightly into my blonde hair. "But she died with something keeping her sane, and I'm happy." A soft smile was on Mom's face when she told me this. I felt like she was okay telling me this, telling me how her sister had died._

_I never knew she cried behind closed doors._

* * *

I yawned with a small smile in the morning. Mom was gently touching my face with a smile, waking me up from dreams filled with cows and horses. My small hands numbly reached up to my eyes, pulling the crustys from my eyes. It was soft hands that woke me, and it was soft hands that took care of me. I was pulled from the bed dressed in an old shirt that smelled like my Dad and his sweat. There was the sounds of mooing as Mom pulled the shirt off and dragged me into the front room to the metal tub near the door. I was deposited quickly in the rusting metal, my bare bottom rubbing harshly against the metal. I made a small whining noise in my throat, Mom shushed me by kissing my forehead and smoothing my hair.

A splash of cold water caused me to whimper, the water cascading off my hair, over my brows and splitting through the ridge caused by my spine rippling from my skin as I hunched over. Mom was brushing my hair with a comb hazardly made of polished animal teeth my Dad had made for Mom when he wanted to marry her. The brush went smoothly through my hair at the ends, but took a bit of tugging at the top of my head and the middle. I was rubbed raw by her fingernails. My hair was being braided loosely behind me, Mom running her hands through it with small hums of the songs we learned in school.

_"__Misty, Misty fields,_

_Crowning of the foals,_

_Harping of the crows,_

_Till spring time comes,_

_With the hardships of our hands."_

Mom left me to go grab clothes for me. They were hand me downs from the houses nearby children that had grown up before me. We were the poorer part of the district, that was true. Not as poor as the establishments down in the southern part of the district. The ones that had all the inbred animals, pigs who walked funny, and cows who were unseeing to those who herded them.

Mom pulled me out of the tub with a small yawn, pulling an old boys blue shirt over my frame, then having me step into pants. I tiredly leaned into her shoulder, my eyes closing tiredly against her frame. She picked me up and carried me with my cheek slung on her shoulder. A hand supported my butt while my legs wrapped limply around the curves she supported me on halfway. The door opened with a creak and I murmured and groaned from the change of temperature, the darkness of morning allowing my eyes to rest easily. Mom pulled a blanket that I distantly recalled was a red fabric that she used to wear as a teenager around her head to keep herself warm. It was fairly big, but not big enough to cover my bare feet.

Mom had quickly fed the chickens just by spraying the feed around, for she had more important things to do besides feeding chickens. Her specialty was the care and butchering of cows. But one of the things that caused her to quiver in excitement was the breeding. See, she didn't normally have bulls come in, occasionally they would take a few cows and pull a bull in to breed, but the Capital had given us in District 10 a thing called frozen insemination. I didn't know what it meant, all I know is that it brought some really different calves from the heifers that were not the same looking as the calves came out to be. It only happened once a month, and it was this month that she insisted that we get up early and get going to the beef section of the District.

We we're walking with a hop in Mom's step. Her throat humming the spring time song under her breath. I opened my eyes when a warm breath had erupted the cold air of the morning, and when we had suddenly stopped. Dad was looking at me with a grin on his face, his hand petted my rapidly drying hair, his hand smoothing down the frizz that came from my nervous habit at school last year to pick out my own air in small strands. I was adjusted to where my face rested against Moms collar bone as she smirked up at Dad.

"You want to take my mare to ride over?" Dad lazily pointed to the field by our house that housed the horses that the residents rode in our area. I lazily looked for his greyed bay mare with a bald face and four white socks, but I couldn't find her. Mom didn't even bother to look as she continued to walk. "She's already saddled!" He yelled over to her, and soon she stopped, looked at him up and down like I saw most nineteen year olds do, and she nodded. She waited patiently as Dad jogged behind our house and brought forth the old mare with stray grey hairs running all through her neck and flank. Her head carried higher than most older horses, but still, she was old, and it showed in the lowered head she carried.

Mom set me in front of the saddle horn, and climbed up quickly, her faded green skirt fanning out behind the mares rump.

"Yive, I thinks about time you retire Fiona out to the pasture, push a few bays out of her don't ya think?"

Dad shook his head as he let out a chuckle, the light wisps of air billowing from his mouth. It was the only piece of light in the morning that I caught. "Nah, how about when our little daughter is old enough to break them for my ol' bones?" He cheekily grinned at me as he tickled my sides, allowing for my laughter to join along with his.

Mom swatted his hand playfully. "I've got to go breed some cows cowboy, saddle a colt later and show off for me when we herd them an hour after sunrise?" Mom grinned down at Dad who was nodding quickly, eager to please Mom at her work. He was already running off, Whooping at the other men's houses to get ready. A few of the men were languidly smoking a pipe on their porches with a bridle hanging off the chair they sat on, woven by their father's fathers.

Mom held onto my waist whenever Fiona took her head a little too low for her liking. Mom was riding Fiona with practiced ease. Her heels down, and one hand placed at my waist while the other was holding the reins in my lap limply. The fields passed us, my eyes drooping, and finally, falling to a rest, where my body slumped forward and a chuckling filled my ears and a hand grabbed my waist even tighter; securing me on Fiona.

* * *

I felt a swaying motion, my blonde hair was stringy in my face, and damp against my warm cheeks. The warm presence of my mother made me happy, and I snuggled into her back further. She merely had one hand pressed against my bottom as a reassurance for herself, while her other hand was waving at some cattle to go into the corral to get inseminated. The stomping of horse and cattle's hooves resonated through my ears, along with the whooping of the herders was heard with their excited laughs and jeering's at the woman who were redirecting heifers.

"You ought to go home and be a housewife Gaby! This work is too hard on your goat roping body!"

Mom snorted and waved a hand at one of the herders, laughing at his grinning face.

"Why don't you go up to the hall to the mayors daughter and play goat roper with her huh? Teach her the ways of roping her prize goats?" No one answered her and she laughed. "Go back to your housewife Tevon."

I heard Dad's loud guffaw as he trotted around with Fiona. Her head up high and her mouth moving around in her bit less mouth, the hackamore straining around her lower facial region. "That's right men! My wife is still working while your goat ropers are sitting around asking what a filly is, Hah!"

I wiggled around in the blanket that secured me to my mother, and looked out. Mable, a girl my age was sitting on a crate near the cow pen, watching her own mom; Wanda stick a heifer with a hot poker in the chute to brand it. The guttural sound of a heifer in pain echoed through the misty morning, Mable cringed and echoed a small cry. Wanda clucked at her daughter sitting next to her, her blonde hair stringy and sticking to each other from an early morning wash and the heat from the metal brand. My clothes and body stunk of burnt flesh as Mom shocked a heifer with the slap of her hand. She grunted and the old panels shifted and groaned over her shifting weight. Her belly protruded and Mom paused at her for a moment, with a sigh she took a marker from the confines of her skirt and put a red mark down the angus heifer.

"You've got a pregnant one coming your way!" She yelled then smacked the heifer on her rump to get her moving into the chute. She shoved the red mark into my small hands and looked at me with a firm stare, as if saying. 'lose this and you will pay for it.'

This was an every day life for me, and most in our district. The smell of cow manure and the touch of hide in your hands. Mom wasn't as excited as she would be cause they decided to inseminate a field farther out and brand the youngest heifers first. She was in a plain bad mood right now.

This was an unimportant day, as was every one. But this was an important day, unlike every one that had happened to me.

I was five years old, and he was six.

He was a brown haired boy sucking on a brown thumb on top of a spooky palomino. It had a pink ribbon in the hair by its ears on its neck, the dyed colour a faded ting that was reminiscent to that of blood being scrubbed out of the hands to a faint pink. His dad was an older man with a peppered short beard on his face, a hat placed upon a mop of similar hair that was shared between the father and son. The light coloured horse was prancing in its steps, its hooves flinging mud up at the other riders. His hair was cut similarly to the shape of a bowl, any miracle to a housewife with sons my Mom would say. He was awful calm about being on an unsteady horse. Mom had set me on a newly broken filly one day and Dad had rushed over as if his hidden pile of cigars was on fire.

So all in all. Dad didn't trust me with spooky horses.

"Dalton!" A woman with various clothes that screamed housewife leaned over the fence, a babe on her back and a little girl clutching to her skirts as her breasts brushed against the damp wood. "Get yer damn get your ass back here and dry these slabs of meat you idjit!"

The man sitting next to what I supposed who Dalton was winced, then patted Dalton on the head. "Sherry, he's fine! It's take your kid to work day today. Leave em alone, he's learning shit."

The woman huffed and looked over at the other kids sitting around by the chute. She blew a strong breath of air and a stringy mass of brown hair flew from in front of her face and floated back down into her eye. "Fine, fine! You go turn yur kid into a breeder! Not like we don't need his help on over at the house!" She practically flew off the fence with her hands raised up in the air in anger as she stormed off.

The Dalton kid was blushing up a storm and his Dad put the brown hat over his head to hide his red face. All the men were laughing at the two. The Father was rubbing the back off his neck while he absentmindedly patted the coat of his dappled grey horse.

A yell of happiness happened in front of me from my Mom when they heifers started to come in from the field, and a tray of insemination tools came forth to her greedy hands.

Everyone laughed.

And my eyes connected with a brown haired boys and we shared a smile

* * *

Made the song up myself, thought it was awful pretty, just a simple song about District Ten and its little springtime song. Slightly morbid if you think about the lines combined. But meh, anyone who reads it might not catch.

Have a good one today!

Terms:

Goat Roper: is a derogatory term for a woman/man for acting like a rancher/cowboy to attract said person. Usually these are seen wearing ranch gear and the such for said reasons.

Heifer: is a female cow who has never been bred/never had a calf

Hackamore: A bridle around a horse that contains no bit and is usually used for young horses getting used to ride/ and or for horses who have a hot disposition to bits.

Mare: Mature female horse

Stallion: Mature male horse

Filly: Immature female horse

Colt: Immature male horse

Kid: A immature goat

Angus: A type of cow that is known for a black coat. Many cows are based off this breed in the Western U.S and are often bred to other breeds and is the main choice for butchery's/sales. This is a very common cow breed.


	3. Innocence Gone

Mornings are often filled with birdsong and excited yips from dogs as they wish for a scrap of food, or the excited steps of hooves from all of the large stock coming in for their hay. I was only eight years old when I first remembered watching the games. I had remembered many other things before that, peace keepers chasing me and Dalton away from the chicken coops, housewives screaming at their dried jerky being taken by us. But I never could recall a time when I had watched the games.

I recalled the sullen faces of two brown haired teenagers upon the stage in the square. A prim and proper man as he called himself was flouncing and prancing about on the stage in a blue coat that shimmered as he twisted every which way. His lilac hair allowed for streams of sun to flow through with a frightening likeness to the glowing of the cave worms that the school teachers told us about. The two teenagers were unlike each other. The girl flicked her eyes with a slowness of a snake, her body lithe and long. The boy was heavy built with muscles for throwing and bucking hay in the summer time. Several people who were above reaping age, and filled with elder age had become keen and betting on this year's reaping's with a strange and unsettling confidence and view.

* * *

I had begun to pay attention during the entrance ceremony. The small projector that was given to every household was playing on the wall into the shelves filled with tools that mom used to help brand and calve. The film played on the tools in a distorted image. My eyes untrained to the way they fluttered and moved against the tools my parents placed them on. It was sort of like a game, trying to remember and place the faces that were distorted by the many planes and angles they were being projected on. I was alone as school was let out for as long as the games lasted, the teachers halting their lesson plans to watch the death and destruction at their own comfort without the worry of children asking anything about it.

Upon this day I watched twenty-four children get picked for these 'games', Mom was out of the house a lot with Dad that day. Something about helping the neighbors mare with her foal she had been struggling with since the early rise of the sun. They were gone for most of the day while the Capital speculated on the hard-faced tributes this year. A girl cried with startling tears as she walked onto the stage… then the train with her shock-faced boy who had his arm numb around her shoulders as she hunched and shuddered.

District one had proud faced tributes, who had all personally volunteered for their positions, faces smug for being the first to shout, I volunteer!

I grew bored until District Ten was brought fourth, the slippery looking girl scoured the crowd of relieved girls, and the boy who had only relaxed in shock when his face when his name was called, then he kept a stone faced look. A Caesar Flickerman commented that from the previous year's tributes from District Ten were sickly looking children who were killed in the cornucopia bloodbath as they were greedy for food and weapons in a desert setting. He was eager to see the two calm looking competitors interact with the Capital and how they would react with the flighty nervous ones or that of a Career.

The only thing I found strange while watching for me in the crowds of people watching the reaping was this Caesar Flickermans commentary. Who named themselves flicker man? That was like calling my Mom Chickenwoman or my Dad Horseman. It was strange.

Besides, I just wanted to see myself on this projection.

When I was still listening on speculation of the order of death of tributes by their first appearance, Mom came in from the fields checking on the newborn calves she saw the projection that I still had trouble watching. She came in and didn't dare look where the projection flashed on. She was silent for a long while as she messed around in the kitchen, starting dinner that smelled of fried meat slathered in crushed bread to make a crunchy outside. I walked up to the skirts of Mom, tugging at them as she looked down at me with glassy eyes.

"Yes dear?" her voice spoke of kindness as she took a small slice of a carrot and popped it in my mouth. Her hand petted my dirty blonde hair with a fondness as she caressed it. I made sure to chew and swallow my carrot safety before I asked my question

"How far did your sister get in the games?"

Mom froze up, her body staying in the position for a minute before Dad came in from work huffing and wiping sweat off his brow. When he saw Mom looking like that he hurriedly whispered for her to get into the chair by the table as he kissed her cheek as he always did and then he took over the dinner. Mom ushered herself to the table and sat down with a heavy thump and I followed her by crawling into her lap. She was motionless for a while until the Capital began replaying small snippets of previous games of other districts who appeared the same as they did when reaped, but then showing they're clip of death, and only a few of success.

A girl with red hair appeared stone faced and she sat up straight and stared at it as her lip trembled.

"My sister, there." She pointed at the screen, the shelves made it hard for me to recognize her, but her features were strong, yet supple in a womanly way. With the quick flash of her reaping, her death was shown as she fought against a career who lost his weapon midway in the fight as she had stolen it and was gutting him open, his intestines falling out like when we were gutting out cows.

Her face was stern and controlled until the career pinned her down and stole the knife, his hand holding his intestines as he stabbed her throat and stumbled away holding the flesh as the games ended with the red haired sister gasping for air as her eyes wildly flew about until she was motionless as the camera zoomed out. Mom was crying into her hands softly at that point, not even responding.

I crawled up further and pulled them away from her eyes. "What's wrong? She was just being killed Mom, we're all meat, so it's alright since they were gonna use her right?"

Mom cried harder as she whispered words I only barely caught under breath before Dad picked me up from her lap and shushed me to my room with a plate for the night.

"Once you're pinned by a career, you're done."

Her crying echoed through the house with her nightmares continuing till morning.

* * *

Dad gave me a talking early the morning when we got up for breakfast and Mom was already up and about feeding the chickens.

"Hey darling. No more game talk alright? Yer Mama is sensitive about this stuff as you saw yesterday. Just keep yer head down low about it and go out with yer friends and go play with the foals or the old mares or something, schools out right?" I nodded and ate my bread that he gave me. "Go play with yer friends then, just go on, get on with it!" I giggled as he playfully swatted at me and hollered that there was a nice big rat in the house and he would cook it up for dinner and with that I squealed with happiness as I was chased out of the door. Dad soon left for work after that and I scrambled off to my new best friend's house.

Dalton.

Dalton was a boy who I first met while Mom took me to her job as she worked cattle. He was the one on the flighty little horse that was now calm as a gelding, yet held the beauty of the mayor's daughters. Dalton was raised by a goat roper of an ex-widowed housewife who got her way with her tall lanky husband. Dalton had four younger half-siblings that honestly didn't give a care about him. But then again the brown haired kid with the puffy red cheeks didn't care much about them either.

Dalton, under the guidance of his previous knowledge was the person who taught me how to ride flighty horses. He was the one to help me start training the filly Kokum, that Fiona recently foaled. Nothing much mind you, just putting a halter on her and starting to lead her around.

Dad didn't really like seeing me on top of a bucking horse though, about had a heart attack when he saw me face plant off of a bay three year old that Dalton was training.

I scurried my way over to Daltons front porch. My hand me downs hanging off of my shoulders with a looseness that only old clothes did. I rapped my knuckles faintly on the door in a pattern. That pattern in turn caused a flurry of activity in the back of the house and then faint yelling as several glassware seemed to break.

Dalton rushed out of the house with a halter dragging behind him. Cluttering on the old wood as he struggled to pick it up. I grabbed the bit end while he held the reins.

"Ready to go riding today?"

I nodded happily, and we ran off together, a nervous paint horse looking at us from the corral as we tried to wrangle it for fun.

* * *

Dalton and I were riding into town on his Dad's dapple grey. We were bareback and wet from just washing the horse in the pond. Children were running around happily, either helping their parents, or just plain goofing off. The sky was turning a beautiful shade of red and livestock danced across the horizon of it like paper cut outs that held no detail. I suppose we were like a paper cut out to others as well in the distance of us.

Occasionally the gray mare would pick up her step and the sounds around us would blur as we laughed and giggled in happiness with estranged conversations that led to Dalton's love of wild horses and my love of tamed goats. Then we would slow down as the mare grew tired of our frequent asking of her to run. The reason why?

We finally learned why no one liked the games.

We heard screaming all through the first night of the games and we ran to our parents rooms with the image of human blood on our minds as we cried, our parents unsure on how to soothe our aches that were trapped within our brains.

* * *

Slowly, Mom's health went down until she could no longer go out and work in the morning. A peace keeper came into the house and demanded to see her health. He ate our food as I stared at him from the screen door. Birds twittering in the background as I watched this strange man eat greedily to what we had to earn. When his teeth ripped open a piece of bread his teeth showed, white and clean, like a baby's.

He was a fairly young man, younger than my Dad, but older than reaping age. His helmet was white with a black visor and when he took it off after Dad left to get Mom presentable, I wanted to go wander in and touch it.

I shuffled a bit in the door and the screen creaked a bit, to a point where he looked up from stuffing his face and noticed me. He was blonde, and carried sureness in his posture. I was sure that I looked awful grubby looking, what with my dirtied face and blonde hair that blurred with the dust coating it. He screwed up his face for a moment in disgust and then motioned me forward with a crook of his hand. He found me answer his becking and for some reason he thought this was amusing because he let out a laugh, a laugh that sounded like the church bells on Sunday mornings. He shuffled through his pockets for a moment, the white uniform glinting slightly with the cover that protected his chest.

I came up to him, leaning over his leg with my hands touching him as I tried to peer into what he was grasping at in his pocket. Usually when a man did that around me, he was pulling out a pipe and some tobacco to smoke as he waited for something. This time though he pulled something out that crinkled in his hand. For a moment, he began to hunch over, as if he was going to share a secret with me, I leaned on my tippy toes to hear what he might say and show me.

But he didn't.

He straightened up when the boards creaked in my house and roughly shoved me away to where I fell on my bottom. He turned his face towards the screening of the games that were just beginning to end on the projector in my home. He ignored me completely as Dad silently looked at him and nodded for him to come into the back to see Mom.

When I got up with a slight whine, I saw a wrapper on the ground. It was one of the candies that the mayor would buy for his wife. It didn't seem a long time when he looked at Mom, but when he came back out, I smelt the mint from the candy, and his grin and he looked down at me.

"Going to be twelve eh? Have fun with that."

My Dad was somber for the rest of the night, patting my shoulder and going to sit with Mom. The candlelight illuminating her gaunt, tight features.

And all I heard her say in the dark night was. "Once your pinned by a career your done."

* * *

I've been plotting this story so much, and have got so many ideas and the whole thing is actually plotted now that I think about it. But I've fallen back in love with this fic and will most likely be writing tons more since all my ideas and the point of the story I want to get to are just sgoubaoifhiusbddi making me go crazy! I just want to get to the parts of the story I want to write cause I'm just bursting with ideas and those parts seem so good and fun to write!

Well then! Have a good day everyone and happy holidays! (If it's still close to Christmas? I don't know, i write my author notes ahead of time then re-edit them conforming to the chapter and blah blah. (Impersonal author notes I say) but yeah, happy holidays if it's still close to Christmas?)

(So yeah, most of this stuff was written around the 2014 Christmas, I edited a little bit and added a few things, but besides that, this has been sitting for awhile. So hehehe.)


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